HSL-Zuid (Dutch: Hogesnelheidslijn Zuid, English: High-Speed Line South), is a 125 km-long high-speed railway line in the Netherlands to the Belgian border, with a branch to Breda. Together with the Belgian HSL 4 it forms the Schiphol–Antwerp high-speed railway. Originally scheduled to be in service by 2007, the first public operations began on 7 September 2009, after a ceremony on 6 September.[1]

Trains run briefly on existing tracks for a few kilometres before entering the high speed line again. At Barendrecht the two tracks cross each other and the trains begin left-hand running as in Belgium, France and the United Kingdom. From here the line runs next to the existing railway as well as the Betuweroute, continuing through the Hoekse Waard area, bypassing Dordrecht. South of Dordrecht, the line runs next to the A16 motorway with a branch spurring off to the city of Breda. South of Breda, the line again follows the motorway towards Antwerp in northern Belgium. At the Belgian border, it connects to HSL 4, which carries on to Antwerp, with an existing line from Antwerp to Brussels.

On 7 September 2009, operator NS Hispeed started a domestic train service between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, weekdays only, 1 train hourly with TRAXX-locomotives and ICR-carriages with 160 km/h max. Over time, this services has been expanded. On 12 April 2010, service was expanded to Saturday and Sunday. On 4 October 2010, the frequency was doubled to 2 trains hourly. On 3 April 2011, this service was extended to Breda. This service is called Intercity Direct, until 2013 Fyra. Although a more intensive service was planned initially, this is not possible due to the V250 rolling stock problem.

Fyra International was an international high speed train service operated with V250 rolling stock between Amsterdam - Schiphol - Rotterdam- Antwerp - Brussels. Due to intensive problems with V250, this service only ran 10 times daily between December 8, 2012 and January 17, 2013.

Roosendaal-Brussels 1:16 (not including the change of trains in Breda) (currently 1:08)

Thalys reported that its trains would start using the line from December 2009, with Paris-Amsterdam journeys being 3h45m and Brussels-Amsterdam journeys being 2h23m, on account of a plan to gradually increase the line speed, with the same trains in June taking 3h18m and 1h58m. However, recent[when?] timetables show that the fastest Thalys trains do these journeys in 3h18m and 1h53m, suggesting that the speed-up had already occurred.[3]

In October 2010, Deutsche Bahn announced plans to directly connect Amsterdam and Rotterdam with London, using the Channel Tunnel. This proposal would see services from London formed of a pair of DB's Class 407 international ICE units, which would then divide in Brussels, with one train to Frankfurt and the other to Amsterdam. At approximately the same time, Eurostar also announced proposals to run services direct to Amsterdam, which would use its planned new e320 trains, and would be capable of operating on the infrastructure of the Dutch classic network as well as HSL-Zuid.

Initially the HSL-Zuid route supported speeds of up to 160 km/h on both the southern Rotterdam - Breda and the northern Rotterdam-Schiphol section of the line. This was because ETCS Level 2 had not commenced operations and Level 1 was still in use. Various reliability issues prevented the use of Level 2 for sustainable commercial service.[5] Another issue was that the updated ETCS software of the Bombardier TRAXX locomotives was not certified for ETCS Level 2 operation. Railway Gazette reported in April 2011 that certification had been achieved and indeed Level 2 operations began on the southern section in May 2011 with Fyra services running at up to 160 km/h and Thalys at up to 300 km/h.[6] Level 2 went into operation on the northern part of the line in September 2011 and Thalys trains were then able to commence 300 km/h operations on that section. The V250 Fyra trains were hoped to enter service in December 2011 and indeed trial service (without passengers) began using first one, then two trains. As of March 2012 driver and train crew instruction runs were taking place with scheduled, non-passenger-carrying V250 interleaved between the passenger services and it was expected that these units would begin passenger operation in April 2012. The ETCS systems of wayside (Thales) and onboard (Traxx: Bombardier; Thalys & V250: Ansaldo STS) are interworking satisfactorily. With changes in the NS concession arrangements from 2015, it is possible that the ETCS-equipped TRAXX locos might be re-deployed from Fyra to other NS services using their 160 km/h capability on the ETCS infrastructure HSL-Z, Amsterdam-Utrecht and Hanzelijn. Alternatively, they could be redeployed to freight services on the Betuweroute / Havenspoorlijn.

The V250 trains were ordered at the Italian train manufacturer AnsaldoBreda and were delivered in mid-2009. On 31 May 2013, the Belgian railway company NMBS/SNCB decided to stop the Fyra project and refused delivery of the trains it had ordered.[7] On 3 June 2013, the Dutch national railway company NS announced that it had made a similar evaluation, and expressed its desire to stop with the V250 project.[8][9] The Dutch department of finance agreed, and recommended that NS do "everything in its power" to get a refund from AnsaldoBreda.[10] At a press conference on 6 June 2013, the manufacturer claimed that the trains had been handled poorly by running the trains too fast (i.e. at maximum commercial speed of 250 km/h) under snow conditions. AnsaldoBreda has also threatened to sue the railways for the damage to its reputation.[11][12]

On 17 March 2014 NS announced a settlement with AnsaldoBreda had been reached. The 9 NS trains will be returned to AnsaldoBreda for a refund of 125 Million Euro, 88 Million Euro less than originally paid. NS will receive an additional compensation for each resold unit to a maximum of 21 Million Euro.[13]

In May 2014, NMBS/SNCB, AnsaldoBreda and its controlling company Finmeccanica announcend that they reached a settlement that confirms the cancellation of the train orders and includes the payment of 2.5 million euros to NMBS/SNCB.[14]